I spent most of my time with the worker’s family.. and they accepted me as family (as far as I could see at that age.. honestly, no idea what they thought of me :p).. (btw, they were illegal; but I will not stand for that today. Back then, they were hard workers for insane hours, and I was more than happy to work along side them with no $$.
Today, they (not who I worked with, but the common illegals) want anchor babies and welfare :/
The ranch was my mother’s BF’s.. I’ll leave it at that, although, at 11yo, he did teach me how not to care about what others thought of you.. and how to be independent.
He could get rough when he had a few too many.. but he actually never abused me. I still feel, to this day, he cared more for me than my mother.. something for another day to discuss.. but he was old fashioned, and he taught me that way.
I personally would love to meet him today and thank him for helping me become more mature.
Gotcha...we have a ‘parallel’ working there...